


Ghost of a Brother

by SilverRosesAndDragons



Category: The Dark Artifices Series - Cassandra Clare, The Shadowhunter Chronicles - Cassandra Clare
Genre: Adoptive family, Brothers, Fluff, Gen, No Plot, post-tda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:21:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27518293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverRosesAndDragons/pseuds/SilverRosesAndDragons
Summary: While babysitting Mina, Kit meets ghost!Jamie. Relationship talk ensues.
Relationships: James Herondale & Kit Rook, Jem Carstairs & Tessa Gray & Kit Rook
Kudos: 40





	Ghost of a Brother

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first TSC fic! It's probably not very good and really out of character. Let me know!  
> Also, I'm horrible at titles. Sorry about that.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it anyway.

Kit thought he heard Mina start to whine. Oddly, she quieted down quickly, but he still thought he should check on her. He had to show Tessa and Jem, who he was slowly but surely coming to think of as his parents, that they could trust him to babysit. They deserved to be able to get out more. As he neared the top of the stairs, he was careful to quiet his footsteps, in case she was somehow still asleep. 

He thought he heard a faint voice, maybe a song, too quiet for him to pick out the words. He knew he must be imagining it. Mina was the only other person home, and at a little over a year old, she definitely didn’t sing yet. 

As he approached the open door to the nursery, he saw a faint white glow. When he looked inside, he saw a ghost leaning over the crib. He realized that the ghost was the one singing, soft melodious words in a language he didn’t know. Before he’d met Jessamine, the first ghost he ever met, two years ago, the sight of a ghost standing over his sister’s crib would have freaked him out. As it was, he leaned against the door frame and wondered why this ghost had come. At the moment, however, he didn’t want to interrupt the song that seemed to be lulling Mina back to sleep.

The ghost was male, with dark hair falling in his eyes. He appeared to be young, maybe in his twenties, but Kit knew not to trust the appearance. Ghosts were ageless, in a way, able to appear how they had at any point in their life. When the song was over, and Mina was asleep, the ghost boy turned toward Kit. “Hello,” the ghost whispered, and Kit noticed that he had a British accent, even stronger than Tessa’s or Jem’s.

“Hi,” Kit replied. “Mind telling me who you are? And maybe why you’re here?”

The ghost boy floated toward and then past him, out the nursery door. “Perhaps we could speak in the parlor, where we are less likely to wake her up,” he suggested. Kit nodded mutely and followed the boy back down the stairs. Kit thought this guy must have lived a long time ago; no one had a  _ parlor _ anymore. Except that apparently, Cirenworth had a parlor. How had Kit not known this? Granted, it didn’t look like the room had been used in about a hundred years, but still. This ghost had known the house had a parlor when Kit hadn’t. “I’m sure this used to be a parlor,” the ghost said upon seeing the disused state of the room.

“Yeah, no one really uses parlors anymore. Most people just hang out in the living room. By the way, are you a Carstairs or something? I’ve lived here for almost two years, and I didn’t even know that room was there.” Kit said, heading toward the living room.

The ghost boy laughed quietly. “No, not a Carstairs. A Herondale. James Herondale. I would shake your hand, but...” he trailed off with a little shrug, the implication obvious. Ghosts have no physical form.

“Oh, your Tessa’s son,” Kit realized. “That makes a lot more sense. I’m Kit, by the way. Also a Herondale.” It had gotten easier for him to call himself a Herondale, and now the name came naturally to his lips without having to think about it.

“Good to meet you, Kit. As I understand it, you’re my little brother,” James told him.

“Yeah, I guess I am.” It was cool to think of having a brother, even if the guy was a hundred years older than him. And also dead.

Kit and James sat in the living room, which James claimed was “Just a parlor without a door,” and got to know each other a bit. 

“I was so infatuated with Grace,” James was saying, a bit later, “that when I got a letter from her saying we couldn’t see each other anymore, I went out and got very drunk. So drunk that I shot out a chandelier on a dare from Ragnor Fell, and Magnus Bane had to pull me out of the duck pond I’d thrown myself into and carry me home. But don’t you go following my example, now. Or my father’s. Or my grandfather’s, for that matter. You don’t have to go crazy and lovesick to be a Herondale. You just have to understand that ducks are evil.”

“Too late for that,” Kit muttered. At some urging from James, he continued. “Well, back in L.A. there was this … um … person ―”

“A boy or a girl?” James interrupted. When Kit shot him an assessing look, he said, “Hey, no judgment. Angel knows my  _ parabatai  _ shared a bed with plenty of both. I was just curious.”

Kit decided there was no point in not saying. James had literally just told him he didn’t care if Kit liked boys. So he went on. “A boy. There was this boy, and I was staying with his family after my, umm ―” Kit wasn’t sure what to call Johnny Rook. The man raised him until he was 15, but Kit now felt like Jem was his father. “After my ... umm ... birth-dad, I guess? After he was killed. A lot happened, and he was really nice to me. When I told Ty ― that’s his name, the boy’s ― when I told him I loved him he ― he didn’t even respond. It was very clear he didn’t feel the same.” Kit could feel hot tear tracks on his face. It was still so raw, even after all this time. He saw James’s hand twitch out of the corner of his eye, lift up and forward a bit before dropping back onto his knee. Kit shook his head and quickly dried his eyes on his sleeve, lifting his head. “And so I left without saying goodbye and moved in with Jem and Tessa, halfway around the world,” he finished quickly.

There was silence for a moment, an uncomfortable silence that almost seemed to ring. Then James said quietly, “It’s alright, you know. To be upset and mad and heartbroken and whatever else you’re feeling. It’s okay to cry. Just don’t let it ruin your life. There will be someone else, someday, if you let there be. You can still have a good life.” James smiled a sad smile at him.

“But ‘Herondales only love once.’ Isn’t that what everyone says?” Kit asked.

James let out a single breath of a laugh. “That is only a myth. As much as I loved Grace in my youth, I happily married Cordelia Carstairs.” That statement, of everything, made Kit feel a little better. A Herondale before him had gotten over his first heartbreak and gone on to happily marry another.

Kit and James talked a while longer before they heard the wheels of the Carstairs family’s SUV in the driveway. James stood up. “I should go,” he said.

“Don’t you want to stay and say hi?” Kit asked, a little confused.

“No, no. Not this time,” James said. “It was nice to get to know you, Kit. Goodbye.”

“Yeah, nice to meet you,” Kit replied. “Visit again sometime?”

“Of course. I’ll bring our sister Lucy next time, shall I?” James asked.

Kit nodded. “Yeah, that would be cool.” As the door opened James blinked out of existence. Kit turned to see Tessa come in the front door, followed by Jem.

“Were you talking to someone Kit?” she asked. “I thought I heard voices.” She went over to hug him hello.

Kit returned her hug before responding. “Yeah. James came by for a visit.”

“James?” she asked.

“James Herondale. Your son,” he told her.

“Jamie was here? He didn’t want to stay and say hi?” she asked.

“He said he had to go,” Kit told her. Okay, so it wasn’t strictly true, but he didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

It was Jem who spoke next. “Did he say why he came?”

“I dunno. He was singing Mina back to sleep when I first saw him, then we just sat in the living room and talked a while,” Kit said. Then, as an afterthought, he added, “I think I like having a brother. Even if he was born in the eighteen hundreds.” This last comment earned a small laugh from both of them.

“You do realize that both of us were born in the 1860s, right?” Jem reminded him.

“Well, yeah, but you’re my parents, you’re  _ supposed _ to be way older than me.” That earned him a fond smile from both, and Jem messing up his hair. “Hey!” Kit protested, trying unsuccessfully to duck away. It was pretty hard to escape a wrestle-hug when both of his parents had  _ way _ more Shadowhunter training than him. He was only, finally, able to get away when Mina woke up again, distracting Jem and Tessa, and he darted up the stairs to put her back to sleep. This time, there was no ghost standing over the crib.


End file.
